“Tell me you don’t love me. Tell me you don’t wish it were
me who held you in their arms. Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you right now,
yeah? Touch you, take you to our bed and make sweet fuckin’ love to all night
long, until there isn’t an inch of your skin I haven’t kissed, licked, or
touched. Tell me you don’t feel me,” he whimpered, placing his hand over my
heart, “here.”

“Creed,” I whispered in a voice I didn’t recognize. Trying to reel in my
feelings, hide the fact that he still had an effect on me.

After all this time.

“Tell me any of that, and I swear I’ll leave you alone, cuz at the end of the
day… All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, and if that’s not wit’ me, then
at least I have the memory of the love of my fuckin’ life.” He placed his
forehead on mine, bringing his hands up to frame my face again. “Say the words,
babe,” he groaned in a tone that made my stomach flutter and my body warm. His
mouth so close to mine that I could feel him breathe on me. The smell of cigarettes
and mint took over my senses. As if he was testing me, he licked his lips
slowly, provoking me. Proving that he was right. I shut my eyes. I had to. The
realization was too hard to admit, and I knew he could see it in my gaze.